Mountain climbing, Indian style

I had planned on going directly to Chennai (formerly Madras)
to take a train west, but Inge, one of the other Sadhana volunteers, offered
for me to come along with her to Tiruvannamalai first.That tongue-twister of a name is more or less
pronounced Tee-roo-van-ah-mah-lie.

“Tiru” is a holy city for the Hindus.It is located at the base of Mount Arunchala
that is the site where the god Shiva appeared as a flaming phallus, or
“lingum.” It is moderately popular with backpackers as a day trip from Chennai
or Pondi, although not enough to be included in the travel guide that I carry
around.

After lunching at a very westerner-friendly lunch (she had
pesto pasta, I had a crepe), we spent the first afternoon visiting the old
Shaivite temple at the base of the mountain.The temple is situated between four very tall entrance gates, each of
which are covered with elaborate carvings and statues of the Hindu gods.The style of southern Indian temples is much
more ornate than those of the north.

The temple is also home of a trained elephant who gives
blessings to whoever gives her a rupee coin.Just drop it inside her extended trunk and she taps your head (or
sometimes ends up bumping your face).

We were allowed to go inside the main temple as well (some
Hindu temples only let in the devout).The dim lighting, dark stone work, and smoke from the many flaming
alters made for a mysterious and solemn atmosphere.Following the example of the pilgrims and of
what I could remember from religious scenes of Bollywood movies, I moved along
with the queue to the altar and waved the smoke over my head, and was given a
pinch of powder to apply a dot to my forehead.

After the temple, we wandered through the large street
market behind the complex.Quite a few
vendors had large blocks of what looked like solid jelly, which I have not seen
sold anywhere else.I bought a chunk of
one of the flavors, and it tasted like a giant gummy candy. Later I saw some in a store where it was labelled halva, but it was unlike any halva I have ever seen!

The next morning we were planning on hiking to the top of
the mountain, but Inge was not feeling well so I went on my own.However, it took me a rather long time to
find the good trail up the mountain.I
did enjoy the search, which took me through the side streets of the residential
area that I would not have otherwise seen.Lots of cute little houses, of course all colorfully painted.The women were out at dawn to clean off the
street in front of their homes and re-draw the chalk art for the Dussera
holiday in front of their doors.They
were all very friendly and pointed the way to the trail.

The trail at first was a continuous climb on steps roughly
made from the stones that cover the mountains in this region.However, the steps ended at a cave wherein
Sri Ramana spent many years in meditation, and the path to the top became
unclear.At that point I hired a guide
to show me the way, and he took me a bit further up the mountain until the path
became clearly marked again with painted arrows.

There were several large beautiful monkeys
who passed me on the trail, but otherwise it felt like I was the only hiker on
the mountain. The day was quickly becoming too hot to hike, and so I found
a nice shady rock to sit and enjoy the view before turning back for the day.

After resting at the guesthouse and lunch at another nice
cafe, we went to visit the Ramana Ashram (named for Sri Ramana of mountain-cave
dwelling fame).The Ashram is home to
many monkeys, who were accustomed to being hand fed treats, as well as some
lovely peacocks.They had a day long
schedule of worship and meditation that guests could participate in, but we
were not inclined to do so.We were
surprised to run into Blaise, who had been at Sadhana a few weeks before, and
it was nice to chat with him for a bit.

I ended my long, tiring day with a wonderful yoga session on
a rooftop shaded by coconut palms, where the yoga instructors skillfully led me
to stretch and bend in ways I did not think were possible for me!

The next morning we attempted to hike to the top of the
mountain again.Blaise had suggested a
different route up that was less steep up to Sri Ramana’s cave, and so we gave
that path a try.We started out just as
the sky was beginning to pale so we could hike in the coolest hours of the day
and watch the sunrise from the mountain.

The path joined up with the one I took the previous day at
Sri Raman’s cave, and this is where it got challenging.From the cave to the top was mostly a steep
route over boulder fields.I was glad I
had been shown the way already, so we could get further before the heat became
intolerable.The mountain turned out to
be bigger and our progress slower than anticipated, and so once we had climbed
up to some very nice views we decided to head back down so we could catch a bus
in time.

1 comment:

Love this post! So glad that you got to see some of the most hallowed grounds in Tamilnadu! My Dad was so excited when he told me that you were heading to Tiruvannamalai! LOL...glad you got to see all those spiritual places - especially Ramana Ashram!!! :o)

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